Entertainment

The Roots dig up a gem

Chevelle’s latest track is an anti-corruption headbanger.

Chevelle’s latest track is an anti-corruption headbanger.

Album of the week

THE ROOTS “undun”
4 stars

When you spin “undun,” the Roots’ 10th and best studio album to date, there’s more than music in the revolution.

This brief rap opus, just under 40 minutes, deserves artistic consideration as a new entry into the black-experience cultural library, along with modern milestones such as Ralph Ellison’s “Invisible Man,” and Public Enemy’s “Fear of a Black Planet.”

On the 14 tracks of “undun” — a concept album, made to be listened to start-to-finish in the order the songs were recorded — the Roots tell the story of a fictional street hustler named Redford Stephens.

It’s a dark collection that begins at the end, with dead Stephens reflecting on his life. You know he’s passed because in the opening track, “Sleep,” he breaks your heart as Roots vocalist Black Thought raps: “There I go from a man to a memory, damn, I wonder if my fam[ily] will remember me?” As the disc continues, we learn Stephens was a smart kid who wanted to do the right thing, but got seduced by easy money, crime, drugs and the youthful belief that he was bulletproof.

Musically, the words and raps that explain thug life without extolling it are supported by surging yet simple piano-driven soul melodies, smart string accents and punchy beats.

As on all the Philadelphia octet’s music, the drum work of Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson interlocks perfectly with the often intense and poetic wordplay of Black Thought. Guest rappers including Dice Raw and Foreign Exchange’s MC Phonte also rap in the Stephens character, giving him an aggressive, dangerous quality. That’s easiest to hear on “Tip the Scale,” with Dice Raw rapping lines such as “I consume my own dreams like a cannibal.”

The last four tracks are an instrumental suite where a classical piano-and-choir riff morphs into a crashing, atonal cacophony, and eventually lands back on melodic ground. Without a word, the music mirrors Stephens’ turbulent life and death, leaving you with the notion that when the coffin is nailed shut, he finally rests in peace.

Download of the week

CHEVELLE “Face to the Floor”
3 stars

ON their sixth album, “Hats Off to the Bull,” Chicago’s thrash ’n’ burn trio Chevelle gets high marks for the track “Face to the Floor,” a powerhouse head-banger that would make the Occupy Wall Street protesters mosh without pepper-spray. The tune’s loopy melody has a very Metallica feel, while the lyrics spit in the face of Wall Street greed, corporate corruption and power-hungry robber barons ready to stomp the little guy. The rich may get richer, but the poor get to rock out.